The invention relates to methods for assuring correct colors in a digital image file as a picture is captured by a camera, scanned, or printed onto a medium at a specified printer location, or simply displayed in the digital space. More particularly, the invention relates to methods for transforming the colors in a digital image to a color corrected digital image.
The traditional method for creating photographic images was based upon the silver halide film process. A camera holds a film that contains silver halide particles which are sensitive to light. When the photographer takes a picture, the image is recorded on the silver halide particles, which are later chemically processed. To make prints, especially enlargements, the photographic image is then transferred via a second photographic process to paper containing a layer of silver halide particles, and the process is repeated. In the case of color photography, the film and the paper use silver halide for each color also but include tinted filters to assure that red light, for example, exposes one layer, blue light another layer, etc.
Different light sources have different balances of energy. As is quite well known in optics, visible light is made up of different wavelengths of energy. Direct sunlight at midday is considered neutral; incandescent light is considered warm, because it has a higher proportion of red light; and fluorescent light is considered cool, because it has a higher proportion of green and blue light.
Although the eye sees these differences in light balance, the brain generally compensates by adjusting the perceived color balance. Achieving a proper color balance in film and paper involves adjusting the filters used on the separate layers of the silver halide crystals. Balancing a specific print is a painstaking, trial and error process.
Traditional still cameras do not affect color balance, except in the trivial sense that lenses may have very slight chromatic effects. The film and paper have color characteristics that significantly affect the color balance of the final print. Most color snapshots today are printed using highly automated electronically controlled printing machines that take these color profiles into account, and require little if any user intervention to get pleasing color output.
However, these automated processes cannot completely compensate for all variables, because a large portion of color variability is attributable to the light source used to illuminate the subject. Different sources of light include varying levels of the components of the spectrum of visible light, which causes them to appear to have different overall color balances. Incandescent light tends to favor yellow; florescent light tends to favor bluish green. While the human brain tends to accommodate quickly to these differences and recalibrate the internal sense of what is a neutral white or gray, a photograph cannot completely compensate one situation into another and the results can be very obvious even to non-professionals.
Color matching in professional photography is often of critical importance. Color matching in professional photography is generally time consuming because colors of various items, such as clothing and other consumer goods, must be precisely reproduced for catalogs, advertisements and brochures. The process could, therefore, get prohibitively expensive in most cases unless a photographer with experience can expedite the processing.
In the last few years, digital photography has begun making significant inroads as an alternative medium for creating and manipulating images. In addition, the availability of inexpensive scanners has made it possible for many people to take photographs created using traditional film processes and manipulate, transmit or print them digitally.
Lately, digital color printing has also evolved significantly, in part, because of color profiles created to map the color characteristics of specific devices. It is, therefore, possible now to get consistent color output on a variety of devices. However, it is considerably more difficult to assure proper color in the creation of a digital file, such as a digital image file provided by a digital camera.
A common problem when one deals with digital color imaging devices is getting the colors on the image as printed or displayed on a monitor to match the true object. For example, a color scanner as an input device is associated with device dependent color space containing colors such as red, green, and blue (“RGB”). The device dependent color space, where colors are described in digital RGB values, determines the color representation of that particular device. This color space is different for each such imaging device and is thus called device dependent color space.
Just as input devices are associated with device dependent color space, output devices, e.g., printers, also operate in device-dependent color space. Colors printed on any given printer typically do not match colors printed on a different printer because each printer is associated with a cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (“CMYK”) device dependent color space. Each image-rendering device, such as a printer or a monitor, has a limited range of colors that it can reproduce, known as a gamut.
Under different lighting conditions, devices such as digital cameras may also have difficulty accurately capturing the full range of values of brightness or contrast. If the image does not accurately distinguish between darker values, then shadow detail is lost and pictures may appear muddy. If the image does not accurately distinguish between light areas, highlights appear without detail and the image may look washed out. By using a test image with a range of values of the same color, such as a grey scale, it is possible to adjust the range of contrast to achieve a more pleasing and natural color balance.
It would be advantageous to provide digital color correction methods to correct for the differences between the reference colors in a color chart and those same colors as presented in an image that is recorded by a photographic device or a film medium.
It would also be advantageous to provide automated color correction methods to correct for the differences between the reference colors in a color chart and those same colors as presented in an image that is recorded by a photographic device or a film medium, and to adjust for optimum contrast and brightness.